Questions About Celibacy in the Clergy

  • Thread starter Thread starter NostalgicBaptist
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Sorry if someone already mentioned this. There are rare circumstances where a Bishop can allow a Priest to be married. It’s not common but there are such situations.

Now I think and believe it is better for a Priest to be celibate. Besides being In persona Christi, during the Mass he is also supposed to serve the Church and her people. When you are married who comes first? Being celibate, allows more time to serve. At least that is my view. It is definitely not an easy job by any means but I am pretty sure most guys know this going into the Priesthood. If you want to serve and be married there is always the decaonship.
 
dochawk said:
I’m not certain, but the Russian Orthodox may still keep the practice of only ordaining married men for non-monastic clergy. one of their saints is a man who was diving soon of answer, and married a young man so that he could be ordained . . .
Click to expand...
What?

I’m assuming that you were using voice transcription to write this, and that you said “dying soon of cancer”. Even that being the case, do you mean that he “married a young man”, or that he presided over the marriage of this young man to a woman, so that the man could be married and then be ordained a priest?

I’m pretty sure the Russian Orthodox did not do same-sex marriages back then, nor do they now. There was a ceremony called “brother-making” (adelphopoiesis) but that was not marriage. There was no conjugal aspect to it.
 
You said what I was trying to get at in my response to the OP, but in such a better way. 😀
 
Thank you for linking to this web page. It is a useful summary of the history and circumstances that led to the policy of required celibacy of Roman Catholic priesthood.
 
Well, that is true from my understanding especially for Anglicans. However the Bishop of a diocese can give special permission, rare, for a latin rite Priest to get married. I believe it was on the Called To Communion show (EWTN) Dr Anders mentioned a Priest in his area that was given special permission to marry. Now I could be wrong and not remembering the discussion correctly, but that is what I recall hearing.
 
Since we are the Church militant, we lay people are the foot soldiers while the priests are like the NCOs.
 
Sarcelle said:
Since we are the Church militant, we lay people are the foot soldiers while the priests are like the NCOs.
Click to expand...
Actually, I’d argue that priests are the officers, and it’s the deacons who are the NCO’s, chiefs of the boat, pick your service branch.
 
po18guy said:
Dunno if this has been mentioned, but some of the cultures being evangelized - a lot of them actually, practiced polygamy.
Click to expand...
My historical understanding is that such converts are told to keep their first wife, and put aside but financially support the rest.

naturally, they found some who really didn’t remember which wife came first! 😱🤔😱🤯

These were told to then choose one, I believe . .
ralfyman said:
But the bulk of the Catholic population is found in the Latin Church.
Click to expand...
Yes, but that doesn’t change the validity of our praxis.

Also, note that before muslim conquest and forced islamification, the Christian East was larger than the west. . .
bassmansteiny said:
There are rare circumstances where a Bishop can allow a Priest to be married. It’s not common but there are such situations.
Click to expand...
there have been a very few cases (finger few) in which both EC and EO priests with very young children have been allowed to marry when widowed–not for their sakes, but that of the orphaned children. (Did I mention that this is extremely rare?).

also, the Russian Orthodox (who historically would not ordain single men outside of the monastery) have sometimes permitted RC priests who convert to marry, on the grounds that they were “wrongfully denied” the chance to do so.
HomeschoolDad said:
I’m assuming that you were using voice transcription to write this,
Click to expand...
auto destruct, err, correct . . . … yes, she was dying, very soon.

err, wow, that was a doozy . . .

did I mention that i really need a new eyeglass prescription?
 
Validity is ultimately based on practicality. That is, it is financially feasible to have married priests. Since you mentioned the other Catholic Churches, then you can probably explain how it works in their case, and then see if it applies to the Latin Church. Keep in mind that large populations of the latter are found in developing economies where there is a significant lack of priests, deacons, and even Churches.
 
But, as explained earlier, there are married priests. That is, married Episcopal priests who converted to Catholicism.
 
ralfyman said:
. Since you mentioned the other Catholic Churches, then you can probably explain how it works in their case,
Click to expand...
Much the same as for any other married couple, I suppose, save that the rectory is provided for the family, making the low salary effectively much larger.

Eastern parishes, whether Orthodox or Catholic, tend to be far smaller than RC parishes in the US–by a couple of orders of magnitude.

My parish is less than 100 families; the RC church 3/8 a mile up the street is something like 200 times the size. We support a priest and then some.

In all seriousness, doubling a priest’s salary would be an insignificant expense in most US parishes–especially those that have one where they used to have three . . .

I think that there must be something fundamentally off in how RC parishes are functions in the US, or how their parishioners financially support them. It’s not that the EC are financially better off, yet we manage support of small parishes , and produce priestly and diaconal vocation at a staggeringly higher rate.

(In all seriousness, you may see RC parishes over the next generation starting to rely on borrowed biritual and married EC clergy . . .)
 
Celibacy was being practiced before the Church could own any property or had any legal status.
 
I know a lot of the earlier Christian women refused to be forcefully married and were martyred as a result.

This was in Ancient Rome when Christians were still being persecuted.
 
Last edited:
NostalgicBaptist said:
I was assuming that since the Magisterium made this decision, and therefore, according to the Roman Catholic Church it is equal in authority to Scripture, that’s why I reasoned as I did.
Click to expand...
Not necessarily. Magisterium is teaching office, and there is nothing magisterial about this. This is simply authority in the Church- which is not equal to Scripture in it’s sense, if Magisterium itself is not invoked.
 
dochawk said:
(In all seriousness, you may see RC parishes over the next generation starting to rely on borrowed biritual and married EC clergy . . .)
Click to expand...
Yeah, I also expect some “viri probati priests” being much more common if they are allowed in Amazon region. Shortage of Priests also leads to other problems; some Bishops do not like to institute permanent Deacons because they view that as diminishing potential Priests in number, and not recognizing that Deacon’s role is much different than Priests. My Bishop is also against notion that he would ever allow permanent Deacon be a married man- he only allows celibate men as Deacons (and even that is rare, rare like one per diocese).
 
I have a question. I responded to @dochawk, but anybody please feel free to answer. I was reading about changes Pope Benedict made in the rules for married priests in the Latin Rite. An article is below. It says…
Almost a decade after Sullins converted to Catholicism, the Vatican revised the policy to apply to other denominations with Anglican roots, not only the 2 million-member Episcopal Church.
Click to expand...
In 2012, Pope Benedict XVI established the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter for those groups of Anglicans in the U.S. seeking to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church.
Click to expand...
So a couple of questions
  1. Are the sons of priests in these groups of Anglicans allowed to become married Catholic priests?
  2. I recently read about a Pentecostal minister who was a Catholic convert eventually becoming a married Catholic priest. What are the new rules of which denominations this exception may apply to?
 
Last edited:
jack63 said:
Are the sons of priests in these groups of Anglicans allowed to become married Catholic priests?
Click to expand...
As my understanding is that the Ordinariate will continue to ordain married men, I don’t see any reason why not. (Generations of Catholic priests is common in the east, too)
jack63 said:
I recently read about a Pentecostal minister who was a Catholic convert eventually becoming a married Catholic priest. What are the new rules of which denominations this exception may apply to?
Click to expand...
I’m not sure that that’s clear yet. As a wild guess, bishops will exercise discretion in individual cases (and I won’t be surprised if that’s often done quietly, letting Rome in turn “not officially notice”, as with the early Melkite ordination of US married men and the silence on the UCC patriarch . . .)
 
I have no basis o answer that . . . but I"ll note that Protestants have clergy in poor countries, and historically much of eastern europe is poor by our standards today.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top